Upgrade worth it??

Blackhorse · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:32

I purchased the following 2.5 years ago

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN) 1
£214.95 £214.95
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI) 1
£104.95 £104.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL) 1
£124.95 £124.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO) 1
£179.95 £179.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) 1
£48.95 £48.95
CD-076-SA Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-076-SA) 1
£23.95 £23.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL) 1
£48.95 £48.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG) 1
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £816.60
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £144.83
Total £972.38

I have since purchased the same memory again, to make it 4GB.
I own both windows XP 32bit and Vista Premium 64bit, and it currently uses the XP as have had so many incompatibillty issues with Vista.

Is there anything glaring obvious that would be a good upgrade?
Everytime i think of anything i always end up building a new rig! Whilst this one is no snail, it could be faster!
Oh and the processor can clock upto 2.8ghz but it crashes out now and again, so i leave it at stock 2.4

Pilky01 · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:34

New graphics card if you play games?

Most of the issues with vista have been sorted out now. When did you last try it?

jak731 · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:37

do you need a bigger HDD?

Blackhorse · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:49

jak731 said:
do you need a bigger HDD?

Think my HDD should be ok as i store all my media type stuff on 500gb WD external

Pilky01 said:
New graphics card if you play games?

Most of the issues with vista have been sorted out now. When did you last try it?

Graphics card is what i was maybe thinking, but wasnt quite sure how much they have improved as to a idiot like myself they all still normally read 512mb, which to me is the same??

Vista, not tried it for a good 12 months

Pilky01 · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:51

Reinstall vista, its pretty good now.

Graphics cards have moved on a fair bit. the 512 is just the ram. Grab yourself a an ati 4850/4870 depending on budget.

Blackhorse · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:53

Pilky01 said:
Reinstall vista, its pretty good now.

Graphics cards have moved on a fair bit. the 512 is just the ram. Grab yourself a an ati 4850/4870 depending on budget.

What are my resrictions on changing the hardware? I remember there been quite a debate when i purchased.
Its OEM version, and i seem to remember it was allowed a couple of minor changes?

Pilky01 · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:55

Its only the motherboard you cant change as far as I know.

If you have any problems you can ring up Microsoft and they will activate it for you.

RJC · 28 Oct 2008 at 18:58

OEM is tied to the motherboard you originaly activated on. You can upgrade CPU, Memory, GPU and hard disc without breaking the EULA, but you might need to re-activate.

If you want a new board then a new license is required.

Blackhorse · 28 Oct 2008 at 19:56

Pilky01 said:
Reinstall vista, its pretty good now.

Graphics cards have moved on a fair bit. the 512 is just the ram. Grab yourself a an ati 4850/4870 depending on budget.

Both these cards work max capicty on my machine? (little weary my motherboard may not be upto it?)
How much of an increase in performance would it be?
There are plenty in each catagory whats reccomended

Also (sorry for all questions) my current card makes a fair bit of fan noise would these be any quieter?

Fallen god · 28 Oct 2008 at 22:04

The 4850/4870 are by far the best thing form ATI in a long time imo, they made my change to ATI, i didnt really turst time since i had many problems but the 4870 is soo good, if you have tried new games like Crysis and stuff then these should run them with little no no problem what so ever, max'd out at your native res. Also about the mobo, the new gfx cards run PCI 2.0 not sure if your mobo runs that. You should post a budget or something and im sure people could recommend all the updates they think is need. The biggest is the the gfx card so you should think about the 4850/4870 depending on how much you want to spend, and GL whatever you do.

EdGey · 29 Oct 2008 at 01:50

id get the gtx260 over a 4850/4870 tbh. or waitn for new nvidia cards which are hear soon or the 4850x2 (if you are willing to spend more)